Carson Block Explains How His Team Investigates A Company

He doesn’t touch on his latest short, Singapore based commodities trading firm Olam, but he does discuss his thoughts on China (“it ultimately gets a lot worse”) and its publicly traded companies (“a lot of your better quality Chinese companies never went public”).

What’s most interesting, though, is his discussion of how Muddy Waters researchers investigate a potential short. Block says that a company’s financial statements are just the beginning. His team often approaches a company as potential clients, gaining access to their factories.

Sometimes, his researches sit and watch trucks going in and out of distribution centres to see what they’re actually loading.